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.Jimmie sighed, not turning around. Is it that obvious? Only to someone who knows you, Eric answered. I m surprised the others haven t been on your caseabout it already. What makes you think they haven t? she asked, turning around, cup in hand, and leaning against thesink. The only trouble is, none of us can figure this out.I was just about desperate enough to ask you foradvice, she finished, with a faint ironic smile.Eric smiled back, although he was now a lot more worried than he had been before.The Guardians weregood folks, but they tended to be.insular.Jimmie s flat refusal to put civilians on the firing line wasonly the more extreme manifestation of the Guardians general desire not to involve outsiders no matterhow magical in their business.Either you were already in it up to your neck, so their reasoning ran, oryou should take the chance to go live a peaceful, normal life and run with it.The fact that Jimmie waswilling to consult him was proof that the Guardians were at the end of their considerable resources. Consider the doctor in, he said, doing his best to cloak his unease with lightness.Jimmie took a deep breath, obviously organizing her thoughts.Eric glanced over his shoulder, but no onehad followed them into the kitchen, and the hum of talk and music was still at an even level.Theywouldn t be disturbed. Okay.For about the past.six months, maybe a little longer, I ve been having nightmares.They sortof come with the territory, I know, but these have been something special.Fires, open graves,things.chasing me.Pretty grim. We tried to figure out a reason for them, sure, but it s been pretty quiet magically since Aerune tried hislittle stunt last winter.They can t really be coming from outside, not with my shields and the House s.And besides, Greystone doesn t pick up a thing at least, not until I wake up screaming.As forwork.well, the job is the job, and it never changes.But the dreams have.They ve gotten morefrequent, and they ve gotten worse. She shrugged, glancing up momentarily to meet Eric s eyes. I mstarting to think maybe I ought to take some personal leave. These nightmares must be something pretty bad, Eric thought.He frowned.While he could certainlyuse his magic with her help and consent to give her sweet dreams in place of the nightmares, it wouldonly be a temporary solution.The real question was what could break through a Guardian s shields andleave no trace for the House or Greystone to sense? And you don t think they re coming from outside. Jimmie shook her head. But they could be. Eric cudgeled his brains to remember all Master Dharniel s lessons on magic, butthe Sidhe Magus hadn t been big on lectures.Dharniel had been more the learn by doing type. You vepretty much settled that this isn t something coming from within if it were, it would probably haveresolved itself by now.And I know that the House s shields would stop pretty much everything, but ifyou have blood-kin, they can almost always get through any shields you can raise. His voice trailedoff.As far as he knew, Jimmie didn t have any living relatives. Mom s dead.Dad s dead.But. Jimmie stopped with a heavy sigh. There s still someone.He s asgood as dead, though. Someone close to you? Eric asked, feeling uncomfortably that he was prying into things that weren tany of his business.Jimmie Youngblood smiled bitterly. Once upon a time I had an older brother.I went into the Academybecause of him he was a cop, like Dad and Grampa.I wanted to be just like him.Only it turned outthat he wasn t a cop just like Dad and Grampa.He.cut corners.Did things that no cop can do andstay clean.Dad found out about five minutes before Internal Affairs did.He turned El my brother in.He left the Force, and that was that. Do you know where he is now? Eric, I don t even know if he s alive, Jimmie said in frustrated exasperation. My advice? Better find him, Eric said. I can play you a charm to give you temporary relief, so you canget some rest, but all it will be is a stopgap.It won t make the dreams go away.And from the kind ofdreams you ve been having, I d say it s a possibility that this guy might be in trouble. Serious trouble.THREE:A DARK HORN BLOWINGIn this forest it was always night.A red moon hung eternally overhead, its scarlet light turning thelandscape below to ebony and blood, hiding the brambles and pitfalls that could trap a running man.Thedamp air resounded to the call of hunting horns and the howls of the pack.Whatever mortal encounteredthem was doomed, for they were the hounds of the Wild Hunt, and once set upon a scent, they neverfailed to take their prey.He had seen them succeed four times before.He was the fifth and last, and sometime in this eternal nighthis end would come in the same way as that of all the others.He did not know how long any of them had been here, suffering the tender mercies of their tormentor.Weeks or months or maybe even years.The old stories said that time ran differently under the HollowHills than it did on Earth.But the time of year was the least of his worries.Staying alive as long as he could and dying well was what mattered now.Was all that mattered now.He stopped for a moment, his back to the trunk of a tree of no earthly species, alert for the sound of theHunt.If he could survive until dawn, he was free.That was what they d told Hauman, and for a while allof them had hoped to escape until they realized that in this world, dawn never came.His antlers caught in the tree s branches.He shook his head irritably as he freed them.They were another part of the trap.There was no way to remove them.Once Aerune had strapped the gleaming silverantlers to your head, only death would release you.That was one of his tricks, and the Sidhe lord had alot of them.Elkanah Youngblood had sampled them in plenty during his captivity.Had the blonde bitch known what Aerune would do to them when she d abandoned them here? Elkanahhoped so.It made Ria Llewellyn easier to hate, and hate was the only thing that gave him the strength togo on.There was no point in hating Lord Aerune it would be like hating a mountain, or the sea, or thenight itself.Aerune was too inhuman to hate, but Elkanah could fear him, and he did.Too late now to wish he d never followed Lintel s orders back in the day, nor followed the path that hadbrought him to the outlaw life of a hired gun.Too late to wish he d died before Robert Lintel hadmagicked them all into Aerune s court with his captive espers
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Tematy
IndexLumley.Brian. .[Psychomech.03]. .Psychoamok
Jeffries Sabrina Lord 03 Niebezpieczny lord
Coulter Catherine Gwiazda 03 Gwiazda z nefrytu
Łajkowska Anna Wrzosowisko 03 Cienie na wrzosowisku
Coulter Catherine Baron 03 Szalony baron
Fiora 03 Fiora i papież Benzoni Juliette
Marlowe Mia Dotyk 03 Dotyk oszustaS303
Kazimierz Przerwa Tetmajer Na skalnym Podhalu
Koneczny Feliks Dzieje administracji w Polsce
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